NSA Documents Released to the Public Since June 2013

The ACLU and others have long suspected that the National Security Agency is relying on its authority to target foreigners abroad as a useful cover for its sweeping surveillance of Americans' communications. Those suspicions were proven true when, on June 5, 2013, The Guardian released the first in a series of documents detailing the NSA's spying activities. Listed below are all of the documents released since that day, both by the media (denoted in blue) and the government (denoted in red). Together, they have triggered a remarkable and long-overdue public debate about the legality and propriety of the government's surveillance practices.

Click here to learn more about what the ACLU is doing to rein in the surveillance state, and here for a comprehensive list of congressional bills introduced since June 2013 to reform the government's spying programs.

Supplemental Order ordering NSA reports to include a discussion of NSA’s consideration and implementation of methods of purging credit card information described in BR 10-49, BR 10-70, various Thirty Day Reports, in BR 11-57, and as discussed at Tab B of the application in the docket.

United States Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) dated July 27, 1993 prescribing NSA policies and procedures as they relate to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and minimization procedures/rules governing the collection, retention, and dissemination of information about US persons

2005 testimony of Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, and Robert S. Mueller, III, Federal Bureau of Investigation, DOJ, before the Select Committee on Intelligence on the government’s use of USA PATRIOT Act authorities

An annual report from the Attorney General to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Senate Judiciary Committee, and House Judiciary Committee concerning requests for access to business records under Section 215

An annual report from the Attorney General to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Senate Judiciary Committee, and House Judiciary Committee concerning requests for access to business records under Section 215

An annual report from the Attorney General to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Senate Judiciary Committee, and House Judiciary Committee concerning requests for access to business records under Section 215

An annual report from the Attorney General to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Senate Judiciary Committee, and House Judiciary Committee concerning requests for access to business records under Section 215

An annual report from the Attorney General to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Senate Judiciary Committee, and House Judiciary Committee concerning requests for access to business records under Section 215

An annual report from the Attorney General to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Senate Judiciary Committee, and House Judiciary Committee concerning requests for access to business records under Section 215

United States Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) dated January 25, 2011 prescribing NSA policies and procedures as they relate to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and minimization procedures/rules governing the collection, retention, and dissemination of information about US persons

An annual report from the Attorney General to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Senate Judiciary Committee, and House Judiciary Committee concerning requests for access to business records under Section 215

A FISC opinion granting the government’s application seeking to reinstate NSA’s bulk electronic communications metadata program after its suspension of the program for several months to address compliance issues

An NSA memo to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Selection Committee on Intelligence providing a status report about the ongoing end-to-end review of the NSA’s bulk telephony metadata collection under Section 215

A cover letter from the DOJ’s National Security Division to FISC Judge Reggie B. Walton providing notice notification of the NSA’s June 25, 2009 Business Records FISA End-to-End Review Report to the Congressional Intelligence and Judiciary Committees

An NSA memo to notify the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of the agency’s presentations to several FISC judges regarding NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program under Section 215 and of FISC reauthorization of the program

An NSA Joint Statement Before the House Closed Hearing on Patriot Act Reauthorization by Michael Leiter, Director of National Counterterrorism Center and [Redacted], Associate Deputy Director for Counterterrorism providing information relating to the NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program under Section 215

A letter from the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs providing notice of Executive branch efforts with the Intelligence Committees to make a detailed report on NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program under Section 215

A letter from the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs to the Congressional Intelligence and Judiciary Committees relating to the NSA collection of bulk telephony metadata under Section 501 of FISA, as amended by Section 215 of the Patriot Act

Opinion of the FISC concluding that the production of bulk telephony metadata records pursuant to Section 501 of FISA is not inconsistent with Sections 2702 and 2703 of Title 18 of the United States Code.

Order of the FISC directing the Government to provide additional information regarding its identification and notification that NSA had improperly queried the bulk telephony metadata by using an automated “alert list” process that resulted in the use of selectors that had not been individually reviewed and determined to meet the required reasonable articulable suspicion standard.

Memorandum of the Government providing additional information relating to the compliance incident described directly above and describing additional oversight mechanisms deployed by the Government following identification of this compliance incident.

In light of the compliance incidents identified and reported by the Government, the FISC ordered NSA to seek Court approval to query the telephony metadata on a case-by-case basis, except where necessary to protect against an imminent threat to human life “until such time as the Government is able to restore the Court’s confidence that the government can and will comply with the previously approved [Court] procedures for accessing such data.”

In response to the Government’s reporting of a compliance incident related to NSA’s dissemination of certain query results discovered during NSA’s end-to-end review, the FISC ordered the Government to report on a weekly basis, any disseminations of information from the metadata telephony program outside of NSA and provide further explanation of the incident in its final report upon completion of the end-to-end review.

Report of the Government describing the compliance issues uncovered during NSA’s end-to-end review, including an explanation for how the compliance issues were remedied. Attached to the Report are declarations of the value of the bulk telephony metadata program from the Directors of NSA and the FBI.

In response to the Government’s identification and notice to the FISC regarding improper dissemination of information related to an ongoing threat, the FISC ordered a hearing to inform the FISC of the scope and circumstances of the compliance incident.

Supplemental Opinion and Order of the FISC reiterating Court ordered restrictions on NSA’s handling of query results of the telephony metadata program, and directing the Government to provide the court with additional information regarding queries of the telephony metadata.

An NSA document describing the FISA Court's 2011 FAA Certifications and noting the FISC ruling that certain procedures for the collection of "Multiple Communications Transactions" were "deficient on statutory and constitutional grounds."